


At The Foot Of This Mountain

by virginiasoil



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginiasoil/pseuds/virginiasoil
Summary: Bellamy tightens his lips and looks off to the fire, shoulders taut and jaw set. Clarke can feel the frustration radiating off him, but she doesn’t care. She needs this. She needs this fight. When he doesn’t respond, she rolls her eyes and turns away. “I’m done, Bellamy. We’re done.”“Like hell we are.” When she turns back his eyes are fierce, feral almost in the light of the flames. She raises an eyebrow. Suddenly, he stands up. “Come on.”The reconciliation and confession we are all craving.





	At The Foot Of This Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! (Mostly because I needed a way to cope with 5x09) Be warned, I put zero effort into assuming where the plot will go. I just needed a reconciliation and confession and I think you probably do too. Enjoy. 
> 
> Title from Sleeping At Last's "Sorrow"
> 
> I own nothing.

Clarke is grateful for the chaos. Ever since she and Madi left what once had been their home, and what shell remained of Clarke’s mother, to meet up with Raven, Echo, Emori and Murphy there hadn’t been a moment of peace. The small group had been in constant movement, first evading McCreary’s men and then trying to meet up with Monty, Harper, and Bellamy – a task that proved difficult given the unreliable radio signal both parties were depending on. The chaos had allowed her to avoid thinking about Bellamy and then, once the two groups finally met, had provided her with plenty of excuses to avoid him in person. 

Yes, she is relieved he’s alive and yes, she may have a solid pit of guilt in her gut for leaving him to Octavia’s long-extinct sense of mercy – but those emotions are nothing compared to the anger that still overpowers her mind. 

For two days Clarke is able to avoid eye contact with him, sit at the other end of the fire, and find something to distract herself from ever addressing or being addressed by Bellamy. She can feel his gaze on her often and the concerned looks of the others doesn’t escape her. Madi certainly makes her opinions on the situation known. And yet, Clarke is content to simply ignore the glaring issue at hand. There are more pressing things to deal with, after all. 

On the third night after Bellamy, Monty, and Harper joined them, however, Clarke’s carefully maintained chaos falls apart. They’ve received word from Kane that Eligius knows Octavia and her army are marching towards the valley. Thus, the hostile newcomers are entirely distracted and no longer care about the rag tag bunch of escapees who are evading capture. For once, the group has a somewhat peaceful night, which means it is exceptionally harder for Clarke to avoid Bellamy. 

It comes to a head over dinner. Bellamy happens to be the one handing out rations and when he gets to her, he murmurs, “Can we talk?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” she snaps back, grabbing her and Madi’s rations. 

“Clarke- ”

Before Bellamy can finish, Clarke stands and simply walks away. He doesn’t try to approach her again that evening. In fact, Clarke doesn’t feel his gaze on her once.

Clarke’s convinced she managed to successfully avoid him until the snapping of a branch startles her out of sleep later that night. Years of protecting Madi and herself from wandering mutant animals – and years of just dealing with raising a kid – have conditioned her to wake at the slightest sound. On edge, Clarke springs up from where she’s been laying and casts her gaze around the small camp in search of an intruder. What she finds is almost worse. Bellamy is near the fire, watching her carefully. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He tosses a stick into the flames and sits nearby. He’s much closer than he was when everyone went to bed that night, his spot next to Echo across the clearing now empty. In fact, Bellamy’s so close Clarke could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. His proximity unnerves and irritates her. A now familiar swell of anger blooms in her chest. Instead of responding, she simply lays back down and turns away from him, pretending to go back to sleep. It’s impossible though. She’s hyper-aware of his presence behind her. For a few minutes, there is silence between them. Just the crackling of the flames and a far-off owl hooting occasionally in the darkness. The peace doesn’t last, though. 

“I thought you were dead.” Bellamy’s voice is barely more than a whisper. The confession sounds like it is choking him. Twisting and curling and tightening around his neck like a snake. Clarke swallows tightly at the thought, and perhaps a little at the pain simply hearing his voice brings. 

“For six years. For six long, hard years I thought you were dead. I thought it was my fault too, because I left you.” 

Clarke doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even move. Maybe, she thinks, if she just keeps still and quiet enough he will think she is asleep like the others.

It doesn’t work. 

“And you know what, Clarke? You know what stuck in my head every time I had to look down and see the molten planet churning below? Every time I had to visualize the pain and fear and confusion you must have felt in your last moments? Every time I imagined the places we had been, the things we had left, and your… your body burning away to ash?” 

Her eyes are burning now. Her throat is too. Clarke bites down hard on her lip to lock away the anguish swirling in her chest. 

“I’d hear our last conversation, our last real conversation. Over and over again.” The emotion in Bellamy’s voice is overwhelming now. His deep tone is peppered with something simmering just beneath the surface. It is lower than usual, as if he is trying a little too hard to control the pitch. “You told me to use my head. You told me the only way to keep us alive was to not use my heart so much, but to use my head. It became a mantra. It became my mission. I felt like the only way to honor you was to keep our friends alive – and that to do that I had to use my head not my heart.” 

Clarke remembers that conversation so well. It is burned into her memory too – the words not so much, but the deep brown of his eyes is there. The trust in them; and the hope. The feeling of his warm hand brushing across her forehead and then her cheek. Clarke remembers the sense of urgency she had felt to let him know how much he meant to her. The memory had sustained her in quiet moments over the last six years. It feels tainted now. 

“Well, that’s what I did. I used my head.” Clarke closes her eyes at the words, as if the action will shut out the reality of her world. She can feel her anger bubbling up as he finally gets to the point. Rage is clawing through her just waiting to escape. “I never meant to hurt her, Clarke,” Bellamy continues after a moment. “Never. I tried to think of any other possible way to get us out of that situation. But there was no other way to peace. It was the best plan. I asked Madi – nothing was forced –”

“She’s a child!” Clarke erupts suddenly, jolting up and flipping over at the same time. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows she probably just woke the whole camp up, but in the heat of the moment she can’t seem to care that much. If he wanted to do this now, then they were going to do this now. 

Bellamy seems startled at her outburst, as if he really had thought she was asleep. “Clarke- ”

“She is a child who didn’t know what she was getting into. You promised me you wouldn’t hurt her. You promised you would protect her.” 

“And I did!” Bellamy finally snaps out of his daze, eyes hardening in the dim firelight. “I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her.” 

Clarke scoffs. “No, you just forced something she has feared her entire life onto her. You just made her the target of every one of Octavia’s supporters. The man your sister sent to take us to the rover? He was there to kill us. He tried to put a bullet in my head before I put one in his.” Bellamy tightens his lips and looks off to the fire, shoulders taut and jaw set. Clarke can feel the frustration radiating off him, but she doesn’t care. She needs this. She needs this fight. When he doesn’t respond, she rolls her eyes and turns away. “I’m done, Bellamy. We’re done.” 

“Like hell we are.” When she turns back his eyes are fierce, feral almost in the light of the flames. She raises an eyebrow. Suddenly, he stands up. “Come on.” 

Clarke crosses her arms and breaks eye contact with him. “No.” She hates how childish it sounds coming out of her mouth. 

“We aren’t doing this here. The others need their sleep.” His voice is hard and cold, so much so that it causes an involuntary shiver to run down Clarke’s back. She’s so angry – so incredibly bitterly angry that she can barely stand it. And yet she wants this. She stands and without sparing him a glance, stalks into the woods. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy calls out harshly. She can hear him stomping behind her, racing to catch up to her merciless pace. There’s a ringing in her ears that just won’t go away and a fire roaring in her chest. “Clarke!” he calls again, but once more she ignores it. 

Suddenly a hand wraps around her arm and yanks her to a stand-still. She shoves Bellamy away, pushing his chest with as much strength as she can muster. “Don’t touch me!” 

“Then stop and listen for once!” 

“No, you listen! I told you no! I trusted you, Bellamy. You of all people know what she means to me. You knew better! You put her in danger; you betrayed me and you put my kid in danger!” 

“To save us all!” Bellamy spits out at her, suddenly surging close. It reminds Clarke of their first days on Earth when he would use his physicality to keep others in line. The memory only adds fuel to the livid fire in her. 

“No, you did it to save your family,” Clarke hisses. “Which you made very clear Madi and I aren’t a part of.” 

Bellamy scoffs. “Is that what this is, Clarke? Is that what this is about?” 

Now she’s the one to step into his space. His slight flinch at her movement almost gives her pause, but she is far past reason now. “No, this is about you sacrificing my kid to get what you want. That crossed a line and you know it.” 

“I was using my head, Clarke! Like you told me to. I was doing what was best for our people.” 

“By hurting a child? My child?” 

“You were going to kill my sister!” 

“But I didn’t! You were the one who poisoned her right before lying to me about us being in this ‘together’ and then tricking Madi into taking the flame. Poisoning your sister is on you – don’t you dare put that on me.” As soon as the words leave her mouth, Clarke notices the change in Bellamy. The moonlight glints in his hard, dark eyes. His entire form stiffens. 

When he speaks his voice is barely a whisper. Something about how quiet he suddenly is makes it feel more dangerous. Clarke can feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up – like there is something really important happening that she just can’t put her finger on. “You’re right, Clarke. I poisoned Octavia. I was willing to kill my sister. You know why? Because I recognized that was what it would take to get peace. I did what had to be done.”

“I don’t even know who you are anymore.” 

Bellamy takes a step back, his jaw tight. His eyes are trained on the trees beside them. “You sure about that? Clarke, how many times did you put Octavia in the line of fire? Remember Ton DC? Remember the bunker? I mean Christ, Clarke, how many people have you and I been willing to kill or harm for our people?”

“Don’t you dare-”

“How is this different?” 

“Because you knew better,” Clarke erupts again. She’s so furious and disappointed and confused by this new Bellamy that she can hardly see straight. “Those times I screwed up, you called me on it. We’ve had six years to grow and reflect. You knew better!” 

Her outburst is met with silence. Bellamy still won’t look at her, his eyes now trained firmly on the ground. His jaw is clenched tight and irritation is rolling off him in waves. Clarke’s just about to give up and head back to camp when he finally breaks his silence. 

“Your right. We had six years, and clearly, we aren’t who we use to be.” Finally, his eyes meet hers again. “I never meant to betray you. I never wanted to hurt you – or Madi.” The anger in him is gone now. Instead, his voice is filled with regret – with a deep sorrow that is somehow even more painful to Clarke than the harshness of earlier. “Clarke, I don’t know how to be around you now,” Bellamy admits. “Things are so different – I’m different and you’re different… and yet…” He sighs and drags his eyes back to the forest floor. “I never wanted to hurt you or Madi. Or Octavia.” 

Clarke is torn to her core by the conflicting need to comfort him and to curse him. She’s angry – so, so angry – but something deep within her yearns to hold him. Just to feel him close to her. 

“I don’t regret what I did though,” Bellamy continues after a moment. “It was the best way to save my people and I don’t regret that.” Bellamy sighs deeply and drags a hand across his face. The familiarity of the action sends a pang of nostalgia through Clarke. “I do regret losing you though.” His eyes meet hers again, they’re mournful in the darkness. Intense and so incredibly somber. “Madi told me – she warned me that if she ascended you would never forgive me, and that’s okay. You don’t have to. I made peace with losing you a long time ago.” 

The truth in his words hits Clarke like a bullet. Instantly, she’s thrown off by the weight of them.

She had been dead to him once before. Bellamy knows what it feels like for her to be cut from his life. It’s as if a cold wave crashes over her, washing away her anger and drowning her in memories of late nights by the radio – hoping, praying, begging for him to give her some sign of life. She’s pulled into the dark thoughts she had in the desert, the hopelessness of those first weeks, the loneliness that kept her company even after finding Madi. Looking into Bellamy’s sorrow stricken eyes, she realizes what it must have been like for him so far above her, watching and remembering and mourning. That’s when it really hits her – the true source of all her anger and frustration over the last couple of weeks. Those six years still weren’t over. After all that waiting and hoping and mourning, she and Bellamy just couldn’t seem to get back into rhythm. They had grown so much in their time apart that they no longer fit into each other’s lives as they had before. She still didn’t have her best friend back and now, it seemed, he may be lost forever. 

“Bellamy,” she chokes out, voice softer now. Clarke’s anger is replaced with something older, something more primal. A deep fear and an even deeper longing. 

He turns from her though, either unaware or unable to acknowledge the change in her. “Once this is all over, I’ll leave. You won’t have to see me again. Just,” his voice falters, as if teetering on the edge of collapse. “Just know that through it all, I just wanted to keep the people I love safe. That includes you.” 

Finally, a long-held sob escape Clarke’s lips. She’s so tired. She’s so tired of fighting with him and of not understanding him. She’s so tired of hiding her disappointment and hurt. She’s so very tired. Six years of longing and loss pour out of her. Six years of expectations and hopes that had been so thoroughly dashed over the last couple weeks finally are released. Bellamy hesitates from his position a short distance away, clearly unsure about where he stands with her and whether or not he is welcome. The thought only makes Clarke more upset and she has to turn away from his form to mitigate the pain it brings. Never in her life has she felt so alone. 

Suddenly there’s an uncertain hand on her shoulder. “Clarke?”

Almost without thinking she turns and clings to him. There anger is still there, but it’s mixed with mourning. The suffocating grief for what she and Bellamy once were is consuming her. Bellamy doesn’t seem to be faring much better. He clutches her tight against him, his own face buried in her shoulder as she hides her tears against his chest. It’s only after her initial guttural sobs subside that she hears it. It’s so faint that she isn’t sure if he is actually speaking or she just can feel the words against her skin. 

“I’m so sorry, Clarke. I’m so, so sorry.” 

She shoves him away suddenly, causing Bellamy to stumble back, eyes wide with fear and confusion. It’s clear he’s been crying too. “No, I don’t want an apology, Bellamy.”

“Clarke –” 

She cuts him off before he can continue, the pain and confusion at her words evident in his voice. “I can’t forgive you for what you did, but I don’t want an apology from you for it. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see you anymore or that I won’t ever trust you again.” Clarke inhales deeply and desperately searches for the right words. “I’m just – it isn’t…” She sighs harshly in frustration. She can’t seem to figure out what to say, let alone why she feels the way she does now – why all her anger evaporated so quickly. Shrugging her shoulders, tears still in her yes, Clarke says the only coherent thought she has at the moment. “I miss you. So much. I miss us.” 

He’s back in an instant, wrapping his strong, warm arms around her and holding her so close her entire world is consumed by him – his familiar earthy smell, the hard plane of his chest, the solid rhythm of his heart beating just beneath her ear. They stay like that for a long moment. Silently clinging to each other in the dark woods, letting the world fade away until all that remains is their entwined bodies. When they finally part, it is Bellamy who pulls away first, but his eyes never leave hers. 

“I thought we would have time. Time to figure everything out without constantly having to survive.” 

Clarke isn’t sure if he means six years ago or now, but she also isn’t sure it matters much. He’s right, after all – they’ve never had the time they need. Clarke isn’t sure she’s ready to examine what exactly they need that time for, so she simply nods and murmurs, “Maybe we will after all of this.” 

Bellamy scoffs, and she can’t help but smile too. It’s the recognition of how many times before they’ve exchanged these same words or a variation of them. Hope for a future that never comes. Just as quickly though, his face turns serious, pensive even. Then, Bellamy does the unexpected. He grabs her hand. Clarke is so startled for a moment she forgets how to breathe. 

“We both know we probably won’t and I’ve gone too long regretting not saying things that needed to be said earlier.” 

Panic sets in then. Clarke isn’t sure why but she knows she isn’t ready for this conversation. This night has been so much already; a whirlwind of emotions she’s been bottling up for years. “Bellamy-”

“No, Clarke, please.” His voice is pained now. Bellamy drops her hand and puts his own on his hips. Nervous energy is radiating off of him. Eyes intense in the moonlight, he steps back into her space again. “I should have told you before we split up at Alie’s lab. I should have probably told you way before that. But now, with everything happening and everything we’ve been through, I don’t want to risk it again.” 

Clarke can hardly breathe, but she can’t tear her eyes away from his either. 

“What haunted me the most about thinking you were dead was knowing that you died without… without knowing how much you meant to me.” 

She suddenly knows with such a force that it’s dizzying. But of course, she’s always known, hasn’t she? Long before Praimfaiya. Long before now. Long before Alie. The quiet unspoken truth between them. 

“Clarke, I loved you.” He breaks eye contact suddenly, stumbling over the words that follow. “I loved for so long and it destroyed me to know that I would never be able to tell you that. And then you were alive and it –” He looks up, unshed tears in his eyes. “I’ve never felt like that. But I didn’t... I’d thought you were dead for so long and things just...” He trails off, pursing his lips. 

“Things changed.” She finishes for him. Bellamy looks back at her then, and his eyes are so full of longing and remorse and regret that she can’t hold his gaze for more than a moment. “I understand,” she finally responds quietly, eyes locked on the ground between them. Clarke takes a moment to gather her courage before looking back up. When she does take in his tired but oh so familiar features, a pang of longing pierces her. Then, her voice barely more than a whisper, she admits the truth she’d long known but diligently ignored. “For the record, I loved you too.” 

Clarke watches Bellamy’s dark gaze flit down to her mouth as he takes a small step forward, and for the briefest moment she thinks he might kiss her. But instead he stops, brings his eyes back up to meet her own, and sighs deeply. “Clarke.” When he says her name, something inside her cracks. His voice is filled with emotion, but overpowered by the sound of defeat – of helplessness and bad timing and so much regret. She knows what he’s trying to say; the message is clear. Echo. 

Clarke wants to scream. She wants to take out her frustration with the situation on the nearest tree. She wants to drag Bellamy to her and make him understand the depth of her love for him. Because that’s the truth, after all. Her love is not in the past tense. She never stopped loving him even after all this time. Even after all he had done. His betrayal had hurt so much because she loved him. This fundamental and long overdue truth was at the root of all their issues. Instead of letting him know this, Clarke bites her lip and nods. “It’s okay,” she reassures him, because Bellamy looks like he is about to fall apart. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, eyes saying what their mouths can’t. Years of wasted potential – of unspoken love – of unresolved tension. The irony of the situation doesn’t escape Clarke. Here they are, being more honest than they perhaps have ever been with one another, and there are still so many unspoken words and unresolved feelings between them. But that’s how it had to be, she supposes. There is a war to fight, after all. And he has a girlfriend. And they are six years older and still haven’t fully come to know these older versions of themselves. 

It’s only when his eyes dip back to her lips and she watches that familiar tick in his jaw that Clarke breaks the moment. She wants Bellamy so badly. She wants him more than she’s wanted anything in a very long, long time. But not like this. So, she stops him before he crosses a line neither of them are prepared to cross. 

“We should get back, we need our rest too.” 

Bellamy’s eyes drag themselves back up to meet her own. He opens his mouth to talk, but closes it a moment later and simply nods. 

Clarke leads the way back to camp, hyper-aware of Bellamy’s gaze on her back. Just before they cross the tree line and enter the firelight, he pulls her back towards him. His gaze is intense. She can practically hear his mind churning. Her stomach in knots, Clarke sneaks a glance back towards the fire and Echo’s sleeping form. When she looks back to Bellamy, she sees that his gaze had mirrored her own. He swallows tightly, hand still wrapped around her arm. “Are we good, Clarke?” 

Instead of answering, she closes the distance between them by pulling him into her embrace. When he buries his head in the crook of her shoulder there is a tension there that wasn’t before. The feel of his warm lips against her skin – no matter how chaste and innocent the action – sends a bolt of lightning through her. Clarke fists the material of his jacket in her hand and deeply inhales his scent, her own face buried against his chest. The tension is so thick it is almost unbearable. She’s hyper aware of every inch of his body and realizes that hugging him may not have been the best way to reassure his concerns of where their relationship stood. With that thought, she pulls away before quickly wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “We’re good,” she breathes out, unwilling to meet Bellamy’s heavy gaze. Before he can say – or do – anything else, Clarke moves out of the shadows into the firelight and takes her place next to Madi. A second later she hears Bellamy returning to his space beside Echo. 

As the night turns to dawn, silent tears slip down Clarke’s cheeks. They just never had the time, she thinks mournfully. Never enough time.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that this is still deeply unsatisfying. I'm sorry. There is a slight, slight chance I'll write another part where we get the second confession - but tbh I'm in the midst of work and studying for the LSAT so I'm not making any promises. 
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


End file.
